“As to what I am doing here, I was brought here, very much against my will, I admit. Our friends here drove me over a cliff higher than that one yonder,” pointing to one that overhung the hollow; “but I stopped half-way down and got inside. Then I walked down through the heart of the earth, and came out at the foot of the cliff, where your people found me.”
“What childishness is this?” said the chief, sternly. “Are we children and fools that you tell us such tales, white man?”
“Ask those who brought me here if it is not as I say,” was the cool reply.
A rapid conversation took place among the Kafirs, many of whom confirmed the prisoner’s statement. It was an unaccountable thing, they said; but the white man seemed to be something of a sorcerer. Anyhow, all that he said about the cliff was true.
And now a fresh excitement took place in the shape of some new arrivals, some mounted, some on foot. Claverton noticed a stoutly-built man in European clothing, who seemed rather to shrink back as if anxious to avoid observation.
“Who is that?” he asked of his guards during the slight confusion that followed.
“Gonya—Sandili’s son,” was the reply.
This Gonya, or Edmund Sandili, as he was known to the colonists, had received a civilised education, and, at the time of the outbreak, held a post as clerk and interpreter in the Civil Service of the colony. This post he had thrown up in order to cast in his lot with his own people—a course which, whether that of a traitorous rebel or self-sacrificing patriot, is a matter of opinion.
“And who is the Umfundisi?” he went on, in an ironical tone, glancing in the direction of a thoroughbred Kafir who was arrayed in a clerical suit of black, with which, and with the white choker adorning his throat, the rifle he carried in his hand seemed startlingly out of keeping.
“Ha! that’s Dukwana. He’s a real Umfundisi at Emgwali. He can pray well, but he can shoot better,” replied the barbarian, with a sneering laugh. “Ha! there’s Matanzima—Sandili’s other son. He is a warrior?”